Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16269

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Arnold M
DTC ads made some cancer patients doubt their docs
Medical Marketing & Media 2009 Aug 07
http://www.mmm-online.com/DTC-ads-made-some-cancer-patients-doubt-their-docs/article/146655/

Full text:

A survey of patients at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that 11% said ads for cancer-related drugs had made them less confident in their providers’ judgment.

Of the 348 respondents to the survey, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, 86% were aware of DTC advertising, particularly television spots (77%), with little variation across clinical or sociodemographic factors except that patients were more likely to be aware of products specific to their cancer types.

Of those aware of ads, 17.3% said they’d talked to their healthcare provider about an advertised medication, though fewer than a fifth of those patients reported receiving a prescription for the drug in question. Patient perceptions of DTC ads were generally favorable, particularly among non-college graduates.

The researchers concluded that the respondents were highly aware of DTC for cancer-related treatments, that they found ads to be accessible and useful and that they prompted “a modest amount of patient-provider discussion but infrequent patient-reported changes in therapy.”